How can a team play so well one week on the road and then so poorly the next week at home?

That's what B.C. Lions' centre Angus Reid was wondering when the 1-3 black and orange regrouped for its first practice since Friday's 48-10 loss to the Calgary Stampeders.

"What I consider the worst performance I've ever been part of as a Lion," Reid said.

Reid admitted the Lions are suffering a leadership vacuum. Without leadership, he said, "all the other issues never get fixed."

"We lost a lot of guys in the off-season, a lot of them were leaders," Reid said. "Some guys now have to step up, some guys have to take on a bigger role, some guys have to find a new role. It does take time, but this is too much time. We don't have much more to wait."

Practice was scheduled to end at 12:30 p.m. but continued past 1 p.m. under the blazing Surrey sun. Head coach and general manager Wally Buono said it was time to put the loss behind and start anew.

"When your child is sick, what do you do? You spoonfeed the child a little bit and every day the child gets a little stronger," Buono said. "Today we're spoonfeeding them a little bit."

His assessment of the loss was blunt.

"In this league, at this level of football you've got to compete on all levels," said B.C. head coach and general manager Wally Buono. "We didn't compete at one level."